Hair. Long, wild hair without a moment's consideration in keeping it presentable. If you see someone with this hair then they're almost surely a badass. And not just any badass, either. A character with Barbarian Longhair will be tough, wild and as uncontrolled as their hair. Generally, it's a sort of shorthand for someone who can't be bothered to take care of their appearance because they're too busy kicking ass. Note, however, they almost always have a permashave regarding the rest of their body hair.

While this look obviously suits a character like a barbarian or certain types of soldiers, it is not limited to groups like these. In fact, because this image suited them so well, it was also a popular style for antiheroes and especially common during the 90s comic book fad of extreme antiheroes. Just one more reason not to mess with Barbarian Longhair.

Jiraiya, the legendary Toad Sage has a long and unkempt white hair down to his waist.

Madara Uchiha, former head of the Uchiha clan and co-founder of the Hidden Leaf Village, also has long and unkempt hair down to his waist.

YuYu Hakusho: Yusake's ancestor, the demon king Raizen along with tribal tattoos(fitting because he's the spirit of war, and his primitive traits show it off), and Yusake as well when he takes his physical traits. An extreme example as his hair is a huge, wild mess that goes all the way to the floor.

In The Eye of Argon, the protagonist, northern barbarian Grignr, has long red hair. It's also described as "robust", but given the author's attitude towards adjectives, that could mean almost anything.

Martín Fierro is described as having thick, long black hair, and a great beard.

Fafhrd, the tall northern barbarian from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, is described as having long, flowing red hair. The Mouser, who hails from the civilized south, often comments on Fafhrd's unkempt appearance.

Conan the Barbarian; Conan is consistently described as this, with it square cut across his forehead.

In A Song of Ice and Fire , the Dothraki are a nomadic warrior race whose men shave their heads after being defeated in battle. So you can tell how badass a Dothraki is simply by looking at how long his hair is. Khal Drogo, a powerful Dothraki warlord, has never been defeated in battle, and his hair hangs down to his thighs.

Highlander likes this for the older flashbacks, though Duncan sported it in the modern day too, when it wasn't in a ponytail. He and Connor both had it during their clan days-and the Scots were often considered 'barbarians'/savages by people like the British. Methos and the other Horsemen also sported long hair during the Bronze Age scenes.

Jason Momoa pulls this off either as an actual barbarian (e.g. Conan, Khal Drogo) or someone who initially appears to be one but is actually a highly-trained soldier (e.g. Ronon Dex). Having excellent physique and being 6'5" helps.

The Uthgardt and Icewind Dale barbarians in the Forgotten Realms are usually depicted this way (ref. the usual depiction of Wulfgar, son of Beornegar on the cover art of the Drizzt Do'Urden books).

Warhammer: Warriors of Chaos are from the local equivalent of Scandinavia, and of course have long, unkempt hair.

The barbarian Chaos Marauders do at least. Fully ascended Chaos Warriors tend to wear all-enclosing armour, so their haircuts are rarely ever seen. But the few that are are almost all completely bald and hairless.

Actually no. Several Chaos Champions from the background actually do keep their hair and beards long after ascending, Wulfrik keeps a scalplock and beard, Sigvald still keeps his hair naturally long and Valkia also keeps long hair. Not to mention Chaos Champions in the BL novels, such as Einarr Steelfist, Cormac Bloodaxe and Alfkael the Aesling.

The shamanic wizards of the Amber Order tend to have long unkempt hair and beards as a sign of their animalistic natures and proximity to the world of the wild.

Ditto for Nordlanders and Middenlanders, though technically a subversion in that they come from the most powerful civilized empire in the setting, the wild beards are a conscious choice made to honour their heritage as powerful warriors. It may also be due to their proximity to the far north and being somewhat influenced by the practices of Chaos worshiping barbarians from Norsca and elsewhere.

Brahms is a vampire with long black hair, that controls blood and is a great ally. And to make matters better, he's a Genius Bruiser, so is far from stupid, and knows a lot from the nature of the world and the manipulations of Odin. In the sequel he disguises as a mercenary called as Dylan, he uses a BFS and his long hair remains.

Among the old Germanics, only free men were allowed to wear their hair long.

Ditto for samurai. The ones who served a single master kept their pates shaved and the rest of their hair in a topknot. Samurai who were freelance or unemployed often let their hair grow out but still kept it in a topknot.

Among the Merovingians, long hair was a symbol of kingship and so important that every king or prince who was forced to give up his claim to the throne, had his hair cut off. At one point during the almost constant civil war between the princes, the queen, who was protecting two of the infant princes in her castle, recieved a package containing a dagger and scissors. Given only these two options, she chose the dagger.

The Celts were viewed as such by the Romans. Among themselves, long hair was viewed as badass and warriors took pride in elaborate hairstyles.

Invoked by many Heavy Metal fans and musicians who evoke barbarian long hair as they base their attitude and appeaarence in Germanic, Nordic an Celtic tribes, specially noticeable with fans of Black Metal where long hair is almost a requisite.

Towards the 80's occurred an unavoidable and still prevalent crossover of metalic and harcore punk sounds, so barbaric long hair became a stock hairstyle for male punks as well. Chances are that if a guy from the Harcore scene does not have a short crop, he probably grows it very long.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy